Over in the comment section at First Things, Thabiti Anyabwile responds to my critique of his Gospel Coalition post. Since Kyle Keating and I drew a lot of attention to his original blog post, it seems only fair to share his response with our readers:
Bible
C. S. Lewis on Homosexuality & Disgust
In the last few days, there has been an extensive debate over a post by Thabiti Anyabwile arguing that Christians should have done more to invoke people’s “gag reflex” about gay sex in order to oppose same-sex marriage. I responded directly to this yesterday, and also published a response by Kyle Keating.
Today, I want to highlight C. S. Lewis’s most extensive comment on the subject of homosexuality.
Lewis is probably the most effective, clear-headed communicator of Christian belief to unbelievers the Church has produced in a century. He understood how to appeal persuasively to his readers’ heads, hearts, and imaginations. His perspective is worth listening to when it comes to one of the most difficult communication challenges the Church faces in America today.
The Gospel Doesn’t Have a Gag Reflex
In a recent post (caution: contains some graphic language) over at his blog on The Gospel Coalition, Thabiti Anyabwile reflects on his participation in a think tank discussion about homosexuality some years ago. He concludes that one of the chief mistakes Christians have made in discussing homosexuality in the public sphere is avoiding the “gag reflex” that some people have when talking about homosexual sexual activity. He contends that instead, Christians ought to play up the “gag reflex” as much as possible.
I don’t know Thabiti. I don’t know how he typically talks about the issue of homosexuality as a pastor in his church. In fact, from what I’ve read from Thabiti, he and I probably agree about most things. But as a member of the same tribe, broadly speaking (conservative, Reformed Protestant, affirming a traditional Christian sexual ethic), I find his post deeply disappointing. The appeal to the “gag reflex” is simply not a good argument—it’s not good reasoning; it’s not good ethics; and it’s not good pastoring.
The Gift of Celibacy
[This is the second in a series of three posts on celibacy. The first was What Does Genesis 2:18 Really Teach?]
I’m frustrated with a lot of the way many Christians talk about “the gift of celibacy.” There are some unbiblical ideas that often creep in, and I think we’re missing some big pastoral issues. Given that I’m bisexual rather than gay and still pretty young, I’m not talking so much about my own experience as that of others (both gay and straight) whose experience is being ignored.
I don’t see how “the gift of celibacy” entails not dealing with sexual temptation or with loneliness. Paul never says that in 1 Corinthians 7 – he just says that he can maintain self-control, which is not at all the same thing. We recognize that being given the gift of marriage doesn’t make everything easy. Marriage comes with a lot of difficulties, and there’s a lot of focus on how to help married people deal with them. When celibacy comes with difficulties, it often seems our only focus is on getting people married. Few people seem to take seriously the idea that someone with a healthy sex drive could be called to celibacy. Our surrounding culture is deeply opposed to celibacy, and many Christians tacitly or explicitly agree with this attitude. In Protestantism, some of these attitudes stem back to the Reformation, despite the Bible’s clear teaching that celibacy is a higher calling than marriage. (This is not to say that all Protestants dismiss the Bible’s teaching on celibacy. For example, John Stott was himself celibate for his entire life but was a respected leader. However, anti-celibacy attitudes are common within Protestant culture.)
Souls Knit Together
Justin Taylor points to an excerpt from an article by Michael A. G. Haykin, the Patristics scholar, on biblical images for friendship:
The Bible uses two consistent images in its representation of friendship.
The first is that of the knitting of souls together.
Deuteronomy provides the earliest mention in this regard when it speaks of a ‘friend who is as your own soul’ (Deut. 13:6), that is, one who is a companion of one’s innermost thoughts and feelings. Prominent in this reflection on friendship is the concept of intimacy. It is well illustrated by Jonathan and David’s friendship. For example, in 1 Samuel 18:1 we read that the ‘soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’ This reflection on the meaning of friendship bears with it ideas of strong emotional attachment and loyalty. Not surprisingly, the term ‘friend’ naturally became another name for believers or brothers and sisters in the Lord (see 3 John 14).
The second image that the Bible uses to represent friendship is the face-to-face encounter. This is literally the image used for Moses’ relationship to God. In the tabernacle God spoke to Moses ‘face to face, as a man speaks to his friend’ (Exod. 33:11; see also Num. 12:8). The face-to-face image implies a conversation, a sharing of confidences and consequently a meeting of minds, goals and direction. In the New Testament, we find a similar idea expressed in 2 John 12, where the Elder tells his readers that he wants to speak to them ‘face to face.’ One of the benefits of such face-to-face encounters between friends is the heightened insight that such times of friendship produce. As the famous saying in Proverbs 27:17 puts it, ‘Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.’
What Does Genesis 2:18 Really Teach?
A frequently misinterpreted verse in the Bible is Genesis 2:18, where God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (ESV). From the immediate context, where God creates Eve as a helper for Adam, many people understand the state of being single to be “not good” and marriage as the only real solution to loneliness.
Common as this interpretation is, it cannot be squared with the full witness of Scripture. Take Matthew 19, for instance. After Jesus had just finished making an argument from Genesis about divorce, the disciples assert that it is better not to marry. If the common understanding of Genesis 2:18 were correct, Jesus would have immediately brought it up. He didn’t, but instead basically said that it can be better to remain unmarried, just not for everyone. He mentioned three categories of people who would remain celibate, only the third of which would have any explicit choice in the matter. (See Seeds of Celibacy for a reflection on this last fact.)
The only way I can reconcile Genesis 2:18 with Matthew 19 is that “being alone” and being married are not the only choices: there must be a third option. This makes a good deal of sense even in the context of the Genesis passage: after all, Adam was not merely single, he was the only human being on the face of the planet. It was through his relationship with Eve that the world was populated. In the New Testament, the Church plays a significant role as family for all believers. In my current situation and life stage, I find that fellow believers do fulfill this role for me, because I do have meaningful companionship and support from my Christian brothers and sisters.
Homosexuality and the development of doctrine
For almost 20 centuries, there was little controversy over Christian teaching about homosexuality. For the last few decades, there has been an extraordinary amount of controversy. How should Christians respond to this changing situation?
In a helpful recent blog post, Christopher Damian draws on the ideas of John Henry Newman to explore how Church teaching on abortion has developed in the past, and how the teaching on homosexuality may develop in the future. The object here is not to argue for a revision of Church teaching to bring it into line with the fashions of contemporary culture. Rather, authentic doctrinal development leads to a deeper understanding of the unchanging deposit of Christian faith.
I wrote about similar ideas of doctrinal development last fall on Spiritual Friendship. As I am currently working on a series of posts which will, I hope, develop the orthodox teaching of the Church in a more pastorally fruitful direction, I thought I would begin with a reminder of some of my thoughts on doctrinal development from last fall. (Apologies for those for whom this is a repeat.)
On Reading James Brownson
In the latest issue of The Living Church, I review James Brownson’s new book Bible, Gender, Sexuality. Here’s my summary of the book’s main argument:
Brownson argues that… gender complementarity is nowhere “explicitly portrayed or discussed” in Scripture. Genesis 2:24, the primary text to which traditionalists appeal to establish that complementarity, is, he argues, not speaking primarily of the difference between male and female but rather of their sameness. Adam needs one who is like him, rather than unlike him (Gen. 2:18-20). Therefore God creates a woman to be such a “like” partner (Gen. 2:20).
On the basis of their sameness, male and female are able to form a “kinship bond,” and the “flesh of my flesh” idiom in Genesis 2:23 thus functions the same way it functions elsewhere in the Old Testament: that is, to denote kinship, not a sexual, anatomical “fit” (Gen. 29:14; Judges 9:2; 2 Sam. 5:1 and 19:12-13; 1 Chr. 11:1). The sexually differentiated couple is then blessed to “be fruitful and multiply,” but they are not commanded to do so. Furthermore, their ability to do so is not the basis on which they are said to be in relation to one another.
On Matthew Vines
Many of our readers have probably heard of Matthew Vines, who released a video earlier this year arguing for a revisionist understanding of Scripture on the morality of same-sex sexual activity. The video has gained a lot of attention—over 400,000 views—and he has also recently been profiled in the NYT.
Today, in First Things: On the Square, I offer a response, which can be found here.
Spiritual Friendship 